Novels by StaryUll

The silence in the Rest Area felt different this time. After the First Round, the atmosphere had been tense because of overflowing adrenaline. Now the atmosphere was dead. It felt like a rotting corpse had been hidden beneath an expensive carpet, and everyone was pretending they could not smell it. Oliver sat on a red velvet sofa, a glass of whiskey in his right hand. He was not drinking it. He simply watched the ice cubes slowly melt, forming a quiet swirl of water inside the glass. Across the room, Throg was snoring loudly on the floor. The orc was physically exhausted. His new armor looked dented in several places, but he smiled in his sleep. Maybe he was dreaming about Griz. And Claire... Claire was asleep on the long couch near a fake window displaying a digital tropical beach. She was curled up, hugging her tactical waist pouch tightly like a body pillow. Her face looked peaceful. Innocent. There was no trace of the cold killer who had shot a Dark Elf in the head and pun

Oliver’s index finger was halfway through pulling the trigger. The muscles in his right hand were locked tight, ready to send a .50 caliber round straight through the girl’s skull. In Oliver’s eyes, the girl in front of him was no longer Claire. It was a monster. A killing machine with melting skin and camera-lens eyes glowing red, poised to drive a massive needle into his chest. “DIE!” the creature screamed. Its voice was a twisted blend of grinding metal and Claire’s distorted tone. “KILL ME BEFORE I RIP YOUR HEART OUT, YOU DEFECTIVE ASSET!” Cold sweat streamed down Oliver’s temples. His artificial heart pumped adrenaline like a broken engine. His survival instinct, the most primitive reptilian part of his brain, shouted one absolute command. Shoot. Shoot now, or you die. The golden Magnum was aimed directly at the monster’s forehead. But Oliver’s hand stopped. It trembled. Not from fear. Oliver had sold his fear long ago. His hand shook because something inside his

“Damn it... my face... my asset...” Lust retreated steadily, one hand covering her left cheek, which had caved inward. Thick purple blood seeped through the gaps between her fingers. Her perfect beauty was ruined, and for the Demon of Desire, that pain was far worse than death. She did not counterattack physically. Instead, she slowly stepped back, slipping into the shadows of the shattered mirrors piled in the corner of the arena. “You two...” hissed Lust, her voice echoing from every direction, dripping with poison. “You think you’re a perfect pair? Just wait until you see what’s inside each other’s heads. It smells far worse than a corpse.” SWUSH! Lust vanished. She melted into the darkness, waiting for the right moment to assault their minds again. Silence fell instantly. Only Oliver’s heavy breathing could be heard, along with the crunch of Claire’s boots stepping over broken glass on the floor. Claire extended her hand to help Oliver up. “Get up, Boss. Don’t sleep

“You broke my toy, darling. That was very rude.” The voice did not come from a single direction. It spun around, bouncing off the thousands of mirror shards scattered across the floor. Oliver stood in the middle of that storm of glass. His Magnum pistol was ready, but his hand had begun to sweat cold. SWUSH! A red shadow shot past behind him. Incredibly fast. No normal human eye could have followed it. Even Oliver’s Probability Sight could only catch a faint afterimage. “Here,” the voice whispered directly into Oliver’s right ear. Oliver spun instantly and fired. BANG! The bullet passed through nothing but empty pink smoke. “Wrong,” the voice whispered again, now at his left ear. Sharp nails grazed Oliver’s cheek, leaving a thin cut that burned fiercely. Lust, Sin Number Six, finally revealed her true form. She was no longer the sweet housewife from before. She stood tall atop a tilted pillar of mirror glass. Her form was that of a woman with beauty painful to behol

The world was shards of glass. Wherever Oliver looked, he saw himself. Thousands of Olivers. Some facing forward, some facing backward, some even upside down on the ceiling. “Claire? Throg?” Oliver called. His voice bounced through the deceptive corridors of mirrors, creating echoes that made his head spin. “Claire... Claire... Throg... Throg...” There was no answer. One second ago, the three of them had walked into the arena together. But the moment the pink mist settled over the room, his companions vanished. Gone. As if they had never been there to begin with. “Spatial separation,” Oliver analyzed silently, his hand brushing against the cold surface of a mirror beside him. “Classic. Lust wants us to play solo.” Oliver walked very slowly. The golden Magnum pistol was gripped in his right hand, while the mechanical hand on his left was ready to fire cards at any moment. The pink mist smelled incredibly sweet. The scent of lilies, vanilla, and..

That smell... Oliver recognized that smell. It was not the scent of blood, not gunpowder, and not the sharp ozone of Purgatory’s magic. It was the smell of overcooked boiled cabbage, rotting wooden floors mopped with dirty water, and damp wool blankets that had never been properly washed. The smell of poverty. The smell of an orphanage. Oliver slowly opened his eyes. But instead of a sterile medical ceiling, he saw a leaking one stained with spreading brown water marks. He was sitting on a cold wooden floor. In his hands were a few playing cards, worn and creased at the edges from constant use. Across from him sat three boys twice his size. The orphanage bullies. “Show your cards, Rat,” one of them said, blowing hand-rolled cigarette smoke straight into Oliver’s face. Little Oliver, maybe ten years old, looked down at his hand. [2 of Hearts], [7 of Spades]. Trash. But hidden inside the loose sleeve of his left arm was an Ace of Spades.

The purple light was blinding, hot, and promised the end of all the pain crushing him.Elios shut his eyes tightly. He could feel the Chaos energy gathering in Lyra’s palm, his wife, his queen, and now his executioner. The power was ready to erase his existence down to the last atom.He was not afraid of dying.He was simply tired. Very tired.Sleep well, my love, Elios whispered silently to himself.But the death he had been waiting for never came.Another apocalypse arrived first.GGRRRRRRR-BOOOOOM!It was not the explosion from Lyra’s hand. The thunderous roar came from below, from the deepest belly of the earth. The sabotage Elios had planted in the main reactor twenty minutes earlier had finally reached its climax.The reactor core, stripped of its cooling system, did not merely melt down. It detonated violently, triggering a chain reaction that shattered the tectonic foundation beneath Facility Zero.The floor of the frozen crater split apart with a deafening crack.KRAAAK!The

Thick purple smoke shrouded the Ice Crater, swirling like a nebula storm in a vacuum.Lyra’s colossal body, which had filled the horizon moments ago, was shrinking at an unnatural speed. Flesh, bone, and muscle compressed inward with a series of wet, sickening cracks, the sound of biological matter being forcibly reshaped.Elios lost his footing. The giant’s back he had been standing on vanished beneath him.He fell.But he did not plunge into the abyss.The gravitational field around Lyra was still unstable from the removal of the Holy Iron Stake. Fragments of the platform, slabs of ice, and Elios himself floated in the air, suspended in weightless stasis.At the center of the vortex of dust and energy, a new figure took shape.No longer twenty meters tall. Now human in scale.A woman hovered before Elios.Her skin was pale gray, hard as marble yet smooth as silk.A pair of jet-black wings, now proportionate to her body, spread wide behind her, beating slowly to hold her position in

Thud. Landing on the back of a giant demon felt exactly like hitting asphalt coated in dry ice. Hard, freezing, and searing against the skin. Elios slammed onto Lyra’s left shoulder. His metal-plated hand grabbed whatever it could find, in this case a thick clump of black hair sprouting from the pale flesh of the Queen. “Ugh.” Vera landed beside him, skidding across the slick, mucus-slick surface of her skin. “Hold on, Vera! Don’t fall!” Elios shouted, catching Vera’s ankle with his still weakened left hand. Feeling parasites clinging to her body, Lyra roared in fury. She shook herself in violent spasms. It was like riding a wild horse during a magnitude nine earthquake. “GET… OFF… ME… LICE!” The Legion’s voice detonated inside their skulls, blurring Elios’s vision. “Sorry, honey! I’m not really in the mood for social distancing!” Elios shot back, his teeth rattling from the tremors. Above them, the three Church gunships that had been spewing lethal firepower suddenly ceased

Falling felt like being pulled back into the cold womb of the earth.There was no scream. The wind roared too violently in Elios’s ears, stealing his voice. Shards of glass and steel from the shattered observation balcony fell with him like an artificial meteor shower.Below, the darkness of the icy crater yawned open. At its center, Lyra’s colossal form glowed violet, waiting for her prey to fall within reach.Elios saw Vera three meters beneath him, her body spinning uncontrollably in midair.“Vera!” Elios screamed in his mind.His human left hand was useless. His right was metal.He did the only thing that metal hand could do.Mid-fall, Elios reached behind his belt and yanked free the portable grappling hook launcher he had taken from the corpse of a Paladin at the docks.He aimed. Not at the distant ice wall, but at one of the massive golden chains still restraining Lyra’s body, a chain stretching horizonta

A high pitched ringing filled Elios’s ears, drowning out the facility alarms still wailing in the distance.“…lios! Elios! Wake up!”The voice sounded as if it were coming from underwater. Hands were shaking his shoulder in panic.Elios’s eyes snapped open. He dragged in a sharp breath as if surfacing from the depths of the ocean. Cold air mixed with concrete dust stabbed into his lungs.The first thing he saw was Vera’s face.The female agent was kneeling beside him. White dust coated her features, dried blood clung to the corner of her mouth, and her right shoulder, where Elios had shot her, was wrapped in a hastily applied bandage already blooming red.“I’m… I’m still alive?” Elios croaked. He tried to sit up, but the world spun violently.“You were thrown five meters. Your head hit the wall. Mild concussion,” Vera reported, her voice trembling between relief and pain as she helped him upright. “If you had not woken u

ZWUUUUM!A violet plasma sphere the size of a basketball blasted from Inquisitor Draven’s arm cannon. The heat was so intense that the air around it warped like asphalt at high noon.Elios threw himself sideways, diving behind a concrete lab table.KABOOM!The concrete table disintegrated into dust. The shockwave scorched his back.“Are you insane? You brought a tank cannon into a room?” Elios shouted, rolling to his feet and firing back with the HK .45.BANG! BANG! BANG!The bullets struck Draven’s mechanical chest.TING! TING! TING!No effect. The lead rounds bounced off Draven’s Adamantium armor, leaving only faint, pathetic scratches. Draven did not even bother to dodge. He advanced on clanging mechanical spider legs, metal striking the floor with heavy, echoing steps, dominating the room like a walking tank.“Primitive,” Draven mocked, his voice layered with thick electronic distortion. “Y